306: The Incarnation of Wisdom in Pre-Christian Judaism

The Biblical Unitarian Podcast · Dec 7, 2023 · 43m

In this week's episode, we listen to the recent paper I presented on the origins of the doctrine of incarnation within the forms of Judaisms that predated Christianity. We carefully examine the Book of Proverbs, the deuterocanonical book of Sirach, the Qumran scroll labeled 1Q20, and the works of Philo, noting how each author illustrates God's personified wisdom as becoming flesh in the lives of noteworthy human beings. It is then demonstrated that the Prologue of the Gospel of John shows dependence upon this Jewish tradition by portraying the Logos--the conceptual synonym of Wisdom--as…